Circle of Ice

id heartbroken.JPG

Kilby writes: This “Wizard of Id” strip was taken from an unnamed draft post that CIDU Bill created in 2019. I initially thought that it was supposed to be a reference to the song “Circle of Life” (from Disney’s “The Lion King”), but comparing the guard’s dialog with the song’s lyrics did not produce a satisfactory match.

Am I missing something, or does anyone have a better suggestion?

Ben and His Marks

ben marks

Kilby writes: This is another one of CIDU Bill’s old drafts from 2019. The reference was so obscure that it might have been suitable for the authors to include their running gag with “Horace”, except that there would not have been enough space for that in a daily strip. (For those interested in background information, most of the sources that I was able to find listed the name as “Benjamin Marks“).

Cleaning out (or adding to) the junk drawer

Reviving an old tradition, I would like to invite all CIDU readers to list any comics that they have “recently” added and/or dropped from their reading lists (this question hasn’t been asked in quite some time, so everyone is free to interpret what “recently” should mean). Bill normally scheduled this question for Dec. 31st, but since that would conflict with the Sunday Funnies, I decided to move it up to Friday, so that everyone can think about it over the holiday weekend.

For comparison, here are links to the available discussions that appeared in Dec. 2018 and Dec. 2019, along with an intermediate call for comic suggestions that Bill posted in March 2019. (Any similar posts for 2017 and earlier were destroyed by “Comicgeddon”; I spent an embarrassing amount of time looking for a 2020 list, before I realized why Bill hadn’t created such a post at the end of that year.)

P.S. I assume that almost all “new” entries will be for reading comics online, but in the unlikely event that anyone has started reading a new comic in newsprint (a.k.a. “fishwrap”) form, please let us know!

Understand it, I do (not?)

understansitidonot

Kilby writes: This is another one of Bill Bickel’s “vintage” draft posts from 2018. Back then, Bill once wrote that his interest in Star Wars completely terminated after the original trilogy, so perhaps he was not aware of the significance of the inverted word order, but he also commented that “Okay, even I know who Yoda is! Yoda’s cat on the other hand…

P.S. I originally scheduled this for the seventh anniversary of “Rogue One“, but it got bumped to make space for the Saturday OYs. In any case, seeing as Yoda didn’t appear in that film at all, it’s clearly more appropriate to schedule it for the fourth anniversary of “The Rise of Skywalker“. Star Wars fanatics are free to discuss which of those two films they liked better; Bill’s answer would of course have been “neither“.

Robin Bickel Redux

Even though Hanukkah is already over, Robin still has a number of Zak’s cards left over, and she wanted me to remind CIDU readers that she is not “re-using” the recipient list(s) from past years. So, if you would like a (belated) card for this year, you need to supply your (postal) address in a new e-mail, sent to “robinbickel (at) gmail.com“. Please put “CIDU” in the subject line.

Anyone who would like to may also send Robin a holiday card.
Mail them to 43 Peace Rd, Randolph, NJ 07869.